Theodore Lemuel Bissell was born in St. Mary's, Ohio, on December 9, 1899. He attended the Maryland State College of Agriculture, now the University of Maryland, College Park, where he received a B. S. in entomology in 1920. During his college years, he was an active member of the New Mercer Literary Society, the Horticulture Club, and the Rossborough Club, as well as serving as captain of Company C of the corps of cadets during his senior year. Bissell received an M. S. in entomology from Cornell University in 1936. He worked as a quarantine inspector for the State Bureau of Industry in Pennsylvania in 1920 and for the Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture from 1921 until 1924. Bissell was an entomologist for the Georgia Experiment Station from 1925 to 1947, when he joined the faculty of the University of Maryland as an associate professor of entomology; he taught at the university until 1968.
Areas of particular interest to Mr. Bissell included the taxonomy of hickory aphids, insect control, and the history of University of Maryland campus.
Bissell died on September 22, 1992.
